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Hawkins County is one of the first counties in Northeast Tennessee to be certified as a Work Ready Community. Hawkins County’s certification effort was spearheaded by Cooper Standard Human Resources Manager Gabrielle Buchanan and Hawkins County Industrial Development Board Coordinator Rebecca Baker.
Administrators and policy makers in both education and workforce development will want to take note of ACT research showing powerful results for holders of the WorkKeys® National Career Readiness Certificate®. Clicking on the title of this post will download two case studies. The first study shows the positive relationships of NCRC levels to gains in earnings. The second study in the download looks at Missouri-specific data on unemployment claim duration, employment status, wages, and postsecondary grades.
ACT® WorkKeys® Estimator is a quick, step-by-step tool used to estimate the WorkKeys skill and skill
level requirements needed for entry into and effective performance in employer training, CTE, apprenticeship, occupations, and job selection at smaller employers.
Excitement continues to build as Washington County seeks the first ever Work Ready Community designation for Maryland. Take a glimpse through the passion of employers, developers, educators, and community leaders at a recent signing ceremony in Hagerstown.
Tennessee College of Applied Technology at Crossville not only offers a path to a postsecondary degree or certification, it also offers career development and workforce training opportunities for local industry and business.
“We’ve got over 500 people going to school here right now,” said Cliff Wightman, director of the Crossville TCAT campus during the Oct. 31 Workforce and Education Summit. “And 100 of those are high schoolers.”
Rutherford County publicly launched their Work Ready Community initiative on Tuesday, November 13th. Check out this congratulations video.
Rutherford County Chamber partners also announced their pledge to become a certified ACT Work Ready Community, demonstrating its commitment to developing a strong workforce pipeline, desirable to employers, economy developers and citizens of the county.
Data is of particular concern when filling open positions that do not require a degree and are primarily entry level. That’s why LORD utilizes three WorkKeys® assessments as an extra screening for machine shop, computer numerical control (CNC) machining, electronic assembly and testing division roles. They identify whether a candidate possesses a minimum skill level that can’t be measured through an interview.
ACT is pleased to publish the presentations and handouts from the recent ACT Workforce Summit in New Orleans. We thank you for your commitment to your students, workforce, and community, and we hope you find these resources useful for you as you prepare for continued growth. Download the resources at no cost online.
Once inside the one-story building, which is peppered with cubicles and small offices, jobseekers are triaged in the front. A case manager assesses their profile and puts their information on a unified system for employers to see. People can log onto computers that use job-board-scouring software, or use phones to cold-call employers. They can enter one of the free WorkKeys hard-skills certification classes or get information on an online soft-skills assessment platform known as Core Score.

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